reading diagnosis and improvements. what is diagnosis some educators are disturbed by the term...
TRANSCRIPT
Reading Diagnosis and Improvements
What Is Diagnosis
• Some educators are disturbed by the term diagnosis because it seems to connote illness or disease.
• Diagnosis is a term that has been borrowed from medicine.
• In the field of reading, it is used to discuss how to identify children's reading strengths and needs.
• The definition of diagnosis offered in The Literacy Dictionary (Harris & Hodges, 1995) is most often used:
What Is Diagnosis
• The act, process, or result of identifying the nature of a disorder or disability through observation and examination.
• As the term is used in education, it often includes the planning of instruction and an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses (i.e., needs) of the student.
What Is Diagnosis
• The first step in diagnosis is the identification of strengths and needs by observing certain signs or symptoms as the child is reading throughout the day and by administering informal reading assessments.
• Some examples of these signs or symptoms would be a child's ability or inability to read fluently, to decode words, or to comprehend.
What Is Diagnosis
• The second step is to determine possible reasons for reading difficulties.
• This is accomplished by analyzing the results of assessments that are used to shed light on a child's reading performance.
• It may also include looking for some of the underlying factors, noneducational or educational, that could be contributing to the reading problem.
What Is a Diagnosis Pattern
• Appropriate instruction stems from and is interwoven with accurate and pertinent diagnostic information for each child in the regular classroom.
• Diagnosis is ongoing and is necessary for prevention as well as for continued growth.
What Is a Diagnosis Pattern
• In a reading diagnosis and improvement program, the teacher is interested in determining the student's reading strengths and needs.
• Factors contributing to these nee to be understood, as soon as possible in order to plan and provide appropriate instruction.
• Three steps to accomplish are important.
What Is a Diagnosis Pattern
• Step 1: Identify the student's present level of performance in comprehension and word recognition by using a variety of reading assessments.
What Is a Diagnosis Pattern
• Step 2: Assess specific student strengths and needs, especially if a discrepancy exists between a student's present reading status and reading potential.
• Doing so allows the teacher to discover specific factors that affect the student's reading performance.
What Is a Diagnosis Pattern
• Step 3: Set goals to help students maximize their reading potential.
• Identification, assessment, and goal setting are three steps in a diagnostic pattern.
WHAT IS RESPONSE TO INTERVENTION (RTI)?
• The latest version of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) , which was passed by Congress in 2004, specifies that it is no longer necessary to show a discrepancy in order to determine who has a learning problem that is severe enough to be classified as a learning disability.
• In its place is a process called Response to Intervention (RtI).
• The commission on RtI summarizes the actual laws and provides clear principles on how to put the intent of the laws into action.
WHAT IS RESPONSE TO INTERVENTION (RTI)?
• The three-step process entails providing children who appear to be struggling with the best possible instruction and taking a look at how they perform under such conditions.
• This first round of instruction takes place in the classroom context and is provided by the classroom teacher.
• If the child makes little or no progress in comparison to
his or her peers, the second step involves providing supplementary instruction, either individually or in a small group.
WHAT IS RESPONSE TO INTERVENTION (RTI)?
• The classroom teacher or another professional provides this instruction.
• If the child still makes little progress, additional tests are administered to determine whether there is a specific learning disability.
• If there is, the child is placed in special education classes and given more intensive intervention.
WHAT IS RESPONSE TO INTERVENTION (RTI)?
• Intervention is a key word here. • Just as with reading diagnosis and
improvement, RtI insists that identifying a problem early on and doing something to ameliorate it better ensures that students will continue to progress in reading.
• There are numerous reading assessment techniques.
What is Balanced Reading
• Balanced reading is defined in many different ways.
• It is a program that incorporates various philosophies, teaching strategies, and materials to achieve the best possible reading instruction for children.
• Balanced reading programs are concerned with early intervention and with helping students gain the skills that they need to become effective readers as quickly as possible.
What is Balanced Reading
• Balanced reading programs are designed to help students improve their higher-order thinking skills, as well as gain needed comprehension and word recognition skills and strategies.
• Teachers also use these programs to nurture in their students a love of books that will help them become lifelong readers.
• A good reading diagnosis and improvement program includes a balanced reading program.
What is Balanced Reading
• A balanced reading diagnosis and improvement program can help to stop the "failure cycle."
• If children continually have reading difficulties, they begin to see themselves as failures, destroying their self-concept.
• The more they perceive themselves as failures, the more they fail.
• And so the cycle continues.
What is Balanced Reading
• Instead, teachers must help to create a success cycle.
• The basic idea is that the more students read successfully, the more their reading ability improves and the more they enjoy the reading experience.
• Because students enjoy the experience, they will spend more time reading.
• Children enjoy doing what they are successful in accomplishing.
What is Balanced Reading
• Developmental reading refers to all those reading skills and strategies that are systematically and sequentially developed to help students become effective readers throughout their schooling.
• “All those reading skills and strategies" refers to learning-to-read skills and strategies as well as reading-to-learn skills and strategies and reading for appreciation.
What is Balanced Reading
• Developmental reading is the major reading program, and the diagnostic improvement program that takes place in the regular classroom is part of the developmental reading program; all other programs are adjuncts to the developmental program.
What is Reading
• The relationship of reading to diagnosis is important in a reading diagnosis and improvement program.
• To fully understand this relationship, it is first essential to define reading.
What is Reading• There is no single, set definition of reading.• A broad definition is that reading is a dynamic,
complex act that involves bringing to and getting meaning from the printed page.
• This definition implies that readers bring their backgrounds, experiences, and emotions into play.
• It further implies that students who are upset or physically ill will bring these feelings into the act of reading, and these feelings will influence their interpretative processes.
What is Reading• Yet another implication is that a person well
versed in the subject matter at hand will gain more from reading the material than someone less knowledgeable.
• A student who has strong dislikes will come away with different feelings and understandings than a student with strong likings related to a given text.
• Under a global (i.e., integrative) definition, a diagnosis acknowledges that a reading problem is often caused by multiple factors.
What is Reading
• Therefore, the diagnosis would include considerations of ecological (environmental), personal, and intellectual factors.
• Educational factors, as well as noneducational ones, are considered.
What is Reading
• A global definition also recognizes that not all children respond in the same way to either teachers or instruction.
• An atmosphere conducive to growth is important, as is the maxim that success breeds success.
• Diagnosis is looked on as continuous, as underlying prevention as well as remediation.
What is Reading
• By using a broad or global definition of reading, we see reading as a total integrative process that starts with the reader and includes the affective, perceptual, and cognitive domains.
What is Reading• The affective domain includes our feelings and
emotions. • The way we feel greatly influences the way we
look at stimuli on a field. • It may distort our perception. • Our feelings also influence what we decide to
read.• Attitudes exert a directive and dynamic influence
on both our readiness to respond to and our willingness to read a given text.
What is Reading
• The perceptual domain involves giving meaning to sensations and the ability to organize stimuli on a field.
• Perception is a cumulative process based on an individual's background of experiences in using the body's sensory receptors and interpreting the sensory input.
• If, for example, an individual's eyes are organically defective, perceptions involving sight will be distorted.
What is Reading
• In the act of reading, visual perception is a very important factor.
• Children need to be able to control their eyes so that they move from left to right across the page.
• Eye movements influence what the reader perceives.
What is Reading
• Although what we observe is never in exact accord with the actual physical stimuli, we must be able to accurately decode the graphemic (written) representation of those stimuli.
• If readers have learned incorrect associations, this will affect their ability to read.
What is Reading
• For example, if a child reads the word gip for pig and is never shown the difference between these words, this may become part of his or her perceptions.
• Whether children perceive words as a whole, in parts, or as individual letters will also determine whether they will be good or poor readers.
• More mature readers are able to perceive more complex and extensive graphemic patterns as units.
What is Reading
• The cognitive domain includes the areas involving thinking.
• Under this umbrella we place all the comprehension skills.
• Persons who have difficulty think- ing (the manipulation of symbolic representations) will have difficulty reading.
What is Reading
• Although the cognitive domain goes beyond the perceptual domain, it builds and depends on a firm perceptual base.
• That is, if readers have faulty perceptions, they will also have faulty concepts.
